The most successful team in English football history and without a shadow-of-a-doubt the most popular club in Britain, if not the world. It’s estimated that United have a global support base of some 650m.

So how did a club formed as a works team in the nineteenth century become the world’s most valuable football club? The answer probably comes from a combination of good fortune, tragedy, thrilling football and the unmatchable managerial talent of a certain Scottish Knight.

The original club (Newton Heath) nearly closed in 1902 – but events across town at Manchester City were to change United's fortunes and alter the course of football history. A payments scandal at Maine Road resulted in City giving life bans to 17 players – the best of these joining a United team that went on to win the title in 1908 and again in 1911.

Tragically it was the Munich air disaster in 1958 that brought The Red Devils to the world’s attention. The accident claimed 23 lives, among them eleven United players and club officials including Duncan Edwards, at the time the youngest footballer to play for England. The sympathy from all over the world for the club was immense; they responded by assembling a mercurial team which included Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best and became the first English side to lift the European Cup.

United were now established as the biggest team in the country, a status they would not surrender despite a twenty-six year barren spell without a title and a (brief) relegation to the second tier.

The arrival of Alex Ferguson in 1986 would see a renaissance for the red half of Manchester. Under Sir Alex’s stewardship United produced a succession of thrilling football teams which dominated English football for more than two decades. He is the most successful manager in British football history having won more than 30 trophies including two European Cups and thirteen domestic titles.